The Symptoms of the Political Unconscious: Introduction to the Special Issue Juliet B. Rogers University of Melbourne, Australia Andreja Zevnik University of Manchester, United Kingdom The political unconscious “speaks”; it displays itself in the symptoms of the political world, in the speech of policy, of decisions, of laws, of images, icons, and gestures, and in protest, resistance, and ordinary violences, and, insofar as it speaks, psychoanalysis can say something about it. In this article, we consider how psychoanalysis can speak to some of the symptoms of the political world as they emerge as a form of the political unconscious. We employ Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to elaborate the unconscious and discuss how some of the symptoms of this unconscious has emerged in the form of Brexit, Trump, and the rise of the right in Europe and the Antipodes. We then elaborate on the contributions to this special issue as well as mentioning how these contributions speak to these latest events. KEY WORDS: psychoanalysis, politics, symptoms, unconscious, psychology The unconscious world of politics has as many fissures and lacunas as any individual psyche, and perhaps more. It is not quantifiable nor does it ever arrive as fixed or stagnant. It will not emerge or eventually reveal itself. It does not fit into a progressive or linear narrative. The political unconscious cannot be put on a couch and analyzed or indeed cured. It cannot be drilled for or discovered. It is always and already there. The political unconscious “speaks”; it displays itself in the symptoms of the political world, in the speech of policy, of decisions, of laws, of images, icons, and gestures and in protest, resistance, and ordinary violences, and, insofar as it speaks, psychoanalysis can say something about it. From a psychoanalytic perspective, the speech of the political world is frustrating, annoying, often as cunningly resistant to exposure or understanding as it is in the clinic. But it is these very symptoms, as performances of the unconscious, that make it so fascinating and so important to under- stand, perhaps particularly at this time in history. On November 8, 2016, the United States of America elected Donald Trump as their next Presi- dent. The commentary that followed this election elaborated upon a universe of affect, passions, and emotions, oscillating between elation, fear, satisfaction, triumph, hysteria, rage, and disbelief. In short, it was nothing less than an environment polluted by excitements from the right, the left, and the in- between. In John Cash’s (2017) terms, it had the affects of a “disaster.” The international response was no more tempered. Australians were aghast but then docile; Brexit enthusiasts in the 1 0162-895X V C 2017 International Society of Political Psychology Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, and PO Box 378 Carlton South, 3053 Victoria, Australia Political Psychology, Vol. xx, No. xx, 2017 doi: 10.1111/pops.12438